Verses: Wounds

Volodymyr Hanchorovsky, 31, married with 4 children, kisses his wife in their home in Khmelnitsky Oblast. Volodymyr was severely wounded on February 20, 2014 when he was shot three times, twice in the back and once in the right arm, while attempting to reach wounded demonstrators who had been shot by security forces in central Kyiv during the Euro Maidan Revolution. Volodymyr underwent multiple operations in Ukraine and Germany but has significant and persistent issues, including extreme pain throughout his body due to nerve damage. This often inhibits him from receiving physical therapy. Teofipol, Ukraine, November 17, 2014

“I went to the Maidan on February 1st. I could not sit and watch the disorder [from afar] -- the beating of children, students as well as their parents at the hands of the Berkut [riot police]. I could not wait and watch…. My heart was being torn apart by what was happening in the State.”
Volodymyr Hanchorovsky, 31, married with 4 children, is prepared for an X-ray at a hospital in Truskavetz, where he is undergoing physical therapy. Volodymyr was severely wounded on February 20, 2014 when he was shot three times, twice in the back and once in the right arm, while attempting to reach wounded demonstrators who had been shot by security forces in central Kyiv during the Euro Maidan Revolution. Volodymyr underwent multiple operations in Ukraine and Germany but has significant and persistent issues, including extreme pain throughout his body due to nerve damage. This often inhibits him from receiving physical therapy. Truskavetz, Ukraine, September 6, 2014

Volodymyr Hanchorovsky, 31, married with 4 children, sits in church after his son’s Christening. Volodymyr was severely wounded on February 20, 2014 when he was shot three times, twice in the back and once in the right arm, while attempting to reach wounded demonstrators who had been shot by security forces in central Kyiv during the Euro Maidan Revolution. Volodymyr underwent multiple operations in Ukraine and Germany but has significant and persistent issues, including extreme pain throughout his body due to nerve damage. This often inhibits him from receiving physical therapy. Teofipol, Ukraine, November 16, 2014

Volodymyr Hanchorovsky, 31, married with 4 children, is assisted down a set of stairs after his son’s Christening. Proper infrastructure for the physically disabled barely exists in Ukrainian cities, towns and villages. Volodymyr was severely wounded on February 20, 2014 when he was shot three times, twice in the back and once in the right arm, while attempting to reach wounded demonstrators who had been shot by security forces in central Kyiv during the Euro Maidan Revolution. Volodymyr underwent multiple operations in Ukraine and Germany but has significant and persistent issues, including extreme pain throughout his body due to nerve damage. This often inhibits him from receiving physical therapy. Teofipol, Ukraine, November 16, 2014

“I am just very thankful that I already have children.”
Artem Zapototsky, 34, undergoes physical therapy in a pool in Truskavets. Artem was severely wounded while taking part in the Euromaidan Revolution on February 20, 2014, when he was shot in the back as he stood unarmed on the footbridge that crosses above Instytutska Street. The bullet damaged his spine before embedding near his left shoulder blade, where it remains today. Married and a father of two children, Artem is a lawyer from Lutsk. Dedicated and motivated, he aspires to regain the use of his legs and trains for approximately 6 hours a day while also continuing his work as a lawyer. Truskavets, Ukraine, September 6, 2014

“Our life has changed completely,” said Svitlana Kapusta, 29. Svitlana wipes the brow of her husband, Sergeant Sergey Masan, a Ukrainian paratrooper from the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv, as he recovers in a hospital in Dnipropetrovsk. Sgt. Masan sustained burns to 70% of his body and lost several fingers in a grad rocket attack in the village of Dyakovo in Luhansk Oblast near the Russian border. He spent approximately three months in the war zone and asserted that his brigade was frequently fired upon with grad rockets launched from the Russian Federation into Ukraine. Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, September 29, 2014

Vadym Dovhoryk, 23, a Ukrainian special forces soldier lays in the intensive care ward at the Kyiv City Burn Center. He was near Debaltsevo when his unit was shelled on the second day of the armistice commonly referred to a Minsk II. Vadym was wounded in the attack and also suffered severe frostbite after spending three days in a forest before being detained by Russian supported separatist forces. He is now a triple amputee.
“We were ambushed as our entire group was executing a mission. I was informed yesterday about all the guys. Two others and I went missing. One of them was buried yesterday. Another is in morgue in a Dnipropetrovsk, but his parents have not yet recovered his remains. They recognized him but are still waiting for the DNA test results. He was our commander.” Kyiv, Ukraine, March 25, 2015.

“If I was not a patriot, I would not have joined the army.” Taras Moklyak, 23, a grenade launcher operator from Ivano-Frankivsk, is comforted by Natalia, a close friend, at the Kyiv Military Hospital shortly before traveling to Germany for further medical treatment. Taras was mobilized in May 2014, and was wounded in the village of Starodubne. He has severe abdominal and pelvic injuries. Kyiv, Ukraine, March 19, 2015

Kateryna Panchenko (right), 20 years old and 7 months pregnant, cries over the body of her husband Edward, 22, at a morgue in Kyiv. Both are from the eastern Ukrainian city of Dniprodzerzhynsk. Mr. Panchenko; a soldier with the 93rd Brigade, was severely wounded in January during heavy fighting at the Donetsk airport. He died at the Kyiv Military Hospital in the early morning hour of February 8, 2015. Kyiv, Ukraine, February 10, 2015

Roman Kubishkin, a 41 year-old construction worker, joined the volunteer battalion Right Sector and was based in Pisky, a village near the remains of the Donetsk International Airport. Shells fired by separatist forces on January 22, 2015 nearly killed him; in fact, his fellow soldiers thought he was dead due to a severe head trauma in which Roman lost much of the right side of his brain.
“16 clinics refused to take Roman because he was in such difficult condition. Nodus was the only one,” said his mother Iryna. Roman is cared for at Nodus, a modern neurological and neurosurgical rehabilitation center located in Brovary, outside of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. His monthly care costs approximately 70-80,000 UAH, approximately $3,000 - $3,300, which is largely funded by donations and volunteers. Brovary, Ukraine, July 28, 2015

Valentya Ivanivna grieves over the casket of her son Serhey Korchinsky, a 35-year-old Ukrainian soldier. Serhey died several weeks after suffering severe burns near the front line of the Russian and separatist occupied areas of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Novodnistrovsk, Ukraine, November 24, 2015

Viacheslav Buinovsky, 41, whose right hand and right leg were amputated, walks toward a close friend as he takes some of his first steps using a prosthetic leg at Ortotech Service, a prosthetics workshop in Kyiv’s Podil district. Viacheslav worked as a mechanic in Sumy Oblast prior to the Euromaidan Revolution, in which he took an active role. He volunteered for the Aidar Battalion after the Maidan and was severely wounded near Luhansk in September 2014. Kyiv, Ukraine, February 10, 2015